UVA Health University Medical Center taps interim CEO

UVA Health announced on Tuesday that it has appointed longtime health care executive Teresa L. Edwards to serve as interim CEO of its University Medical Center.

Based in Charlottesville, the University Medical Center is UVA Health’s health system’s flagship teaching hospital, featuring about 700 beds, a Level I trauma center, a Level IV NICU, a NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. It has more than 1,350 affiliated faculty members.

Edwards takes the reins from previous CEO Wendy Horton, who recently departed the health system to become a senior vice president and president of adult care services at UCSF Health.

In recent months, UVA Health has undergone significant executive turnover. Horton’s departure follows earlier exits of former UVA Health CEO Dr. K. Craig Kent and medical school dean and UVA Health chief health affairs officer Dr. Melina Kibbe. The departures came amid staff tensions, a 2024 no-confidence vote against Kent and Kibbe and criticism over leadership culture and spending.

Edwards begins her new role on Sept. 15.

“We are delighted to welcome Teresa Edwards to our organization,” said Mitchell Rosner, interim executive vice president for health affairs at the University of Virginia in a statement. “Terrie brings her energy, expertise and experience to UVA Health and will lead a team dedicated to our community and to the highest quality of patient care and safety.”

Edwards spent more than 16 years at Sentara Health in various roles, most recently as senior vice president and regional president of its eastern division. In that role, she oversaw five hospitals, strengthening their supply chain, implemented the division’s first regional market plan, and developed a replacement medical campus in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

She was interim president for acute and post-acute care delivery across the Sentara system between 2023 and 2024, corporate vice president for Sentara’s Peninsula Region from 2016 to 2020 and president of Sentara Leigh Hospital in Norfolk from 2008 to 2016.

Before Sentara, Edwards was an executive vice president and administrator at Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center in Richmond.

Edwards has a master’s degree in health administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. She also founded her own company, Edwards Executive Compass, to provide executive coaching and consulting services.

“Serving as interim CEO of UVA Health’s University Medical Center is a hugely exciting opportunity,” Edwards said in a statement. “I look forward to working with all the team members to build on the exceptional patient care UVA Health already offers for patients across Virginia and beyond.”

The Charlottesville-based UVA Health system includes four hospitals across Charlottesville, Culpeper and Northern Virginia and the UVA School of Medicine, UVA School of Nursing, UVA Physicians Group and the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library. The health system has more than 1,000 inpatient beds, approximately 40,000 annual inpatient stays, more than 1 million annual outpatient encounters and more than 1,000 employed and independent physicians

During the most recent fiscal year, the university medical center discharged more than 32,000 inpatients and had more than 1 million outpatient visits.